Penny

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Historical Context

… with the end of the Gellenti and Axarine campaigns and the Treaties of Vaetis Proximii which reunited the fragmented Western Marches with the core Capellean clusters Imperial control was firmly reinstated. Though large segments of the Imperial Fleet, Army and Marines remained in the west for some decades, her Highness Cordellia Livinia was at last victorious, having successfully weathered the serious of rebellions which would later be aggregated under the convenient nomen of the Second Schism.

Decades of on and off fighting had privileged the executive position of the Empress to levels not seen since the Collapse. Furthermore a personal interest in, and judicious of, use of promotion and the grinding casualties of a decades long campaign, had furnished the by then aged Empress with a cadre of officers and advisors whose skill and ability have seldom been seen since the formation of the Stellar Empire. Though the campaigns of Admiral Kavic, the diplomatic victories in courting the wavering Sector Dukes, and the lesser known but no less important actions of a cadre of veteran officers, are beyond the scope of this treaties, it is suffice to say that the position of the Imperial party was extremely strong.

As ever seems to be the case with the Viatrente family Fortune’s Wheel did not long endure this happy state of affairs. Cordellia Livinia was by now aged and worn, as much by the cares of a wartime crown as by the passage of years. Indeed it seemed that hardly was the ink on the Vaetis Treaty dry than the Empress began to fade. Despite the efforts of her physicians Cordellia Livinia died with a year, bequeathing the Empire, much strengthened and at the peak of its strength to her son Paelon. Before her passing the Empress prevailed upon her council to swear an oath to the then middle aged Paelon, though truthfully their loyalty to their liege lady and weariness of war would have been sufficient to prevent any thought of a challenge.

Paelon Viatrente’s reign was marked by the growth of trade and the prosperity of peace. The wealth of the Empire increased by the year, and the Emperor, with the example of his mother heeded the advice of the council bequeathed to him by his mother's example. Though dutiful and competent Paelon lacked the dynamism which characterized his mother and though he worked himself to the point of exhaustion he was frequently unable to exercise control of events. At key crisis points throughout his reign, such as the mutiny at Aquillea and the Rebellion at Gysemae, the Emperors response was vacillating and lacking in resolve. Action by local nobles and officers contained the damage, but set a precedent for independent action which would prove troubling in subsequent years.

The expansion of trade and the demobilization following the end of the war proved to hold unexpected stings. Men and women who had made their livings by the prosecution of warfare in Imperial service found themselves with few opportunities for employment and access to a great deal of surplus military equipment. Furthermore they were forced to watch the rewards of the peace being reaped by traders and merchants, all of whom had been far from the fighting and many of which owed allegiance to worlds that had been in open rebellion. Piracy and banditry spread amongst the outlying systems, even into those, such as the Eastern Cross, which were untouched by the Schism itself. The problem proved an insoluble one to Paelon and his administration. Though the Imperial forces were able to smash individual pockets of resistance with ease, the problem proved to vast to admit of a singular solution. Furthermore Imperial troops expressed a marked reluctance to put down former comrades with the customary, and necessary, force. Indeed fears of mutiny and insurrection amongst crews and ground units led to increasing timidity in the repression of chaos.

Paleon Viatrente died after a reign of only twenty one years. Unlike his mother, he bequeathed to his son Phillipus an Empire simmering with chaos. The noble council and officer corp that had bulwarked the beginning of Paleon’s reign were beginning to be lost due to death or retirement. Outlying systems suffered greatly from piracy and lawlessness and the merchants and nobles who suffered at their hands growing discontented with the lack of effective Imperial response. Unfortunately Paleon Viatrente’s death had one last misfortune to bequeath to the Empire.

Phillipus Viatrente had long been neglected by his father. Though this neglect was borne of Paleon’s complete if ineffective commitment to his duty, this did little to soften the blow to the young prince. Ascending at only twenty years of age, Phillipus was insecure, foolish, weak minded and easily lead. He immediately dismissed the remaining more militant officers from the council, detesting the way they had always made his father appear weak. Instead he staffed the bureaucracy with his own cronies, ambitious social climbers who had long seen the disaffected Phillipus as a ladder to power. The young Emperor was convinced by his coterie to allow the construction of private forces for the suppression of unrest, the very condition which had lead to the Second Schism. The older militant families lobbied hard against his move and earned the further ire of the vengeful and autocratic Phillipus. Although they weren’t able to prevent the creation of private militias, they were able to prohibit the possession of capital class vessels and certain other military technology, measures aimed at preserving the superiority of the Fleet over the squadrons of local warships.

Although the Phillipic Reforms initially allowed the suppression of piracy and chaos, both through a direct application of force and by providing profitable and legal employment for members of the disaffected soldiery, the long term effects were predictable. Nobles and merchant consortiums began to use their new found armies to settle private squabbles and to extort concessions from those slower to build up their own forces. The Empire, formally united by the Vaetis Treaties, began to fracture into regional power blocks.

Beset by constant strife and harried on all sides by the demands of both his political clients and opponents Phillipus began to grow erratic and paranoid. Imperial Intelligence and the secret police grew more powerful by playing on the Emperors fears, and many citizens, including members of the nobility and political opposition began to disappear. Worse still Phillipus’ paranoia began to extend to his own family. His wife and daughter were placed under house arrest and restricted to the Spire. These detentions enraged large factions of the nobility, even swaying previously neutral magnates to outright opposition, further fanning the flames of the increasingly unstable Emperor.

Over the next three years the situation continued to degenerate. Central paralysis further encouraged regional lords to act independently and allowed the unscrupulous to expand their power bases. Continuing disappearances and imprisonments on Capella raised the political temperature to near boiling point and the ancient right to travel with armed liegemen was revived. The final straw came when the Empress, Miranda Sienna, died unexpectedly. Despite attempts to keep it quiet news spread across Capella within hours. Rumors abound that Phillipus had ordered Miranda and his daughters execution, pushing the ancient families, with whom they were intimately connected by marriage and family alliances, to the breaking point.

For a time it looked as though open warfare might erupt on the capital itself as the nobility convulsed in a coup against the Emperor. Fortunately this disastrous coup attempt was forestalled by two unexpected turns of events. One, the unstable Phillipus finally snapped. He appeared in the throne room in the full ancient regalia, mounted the throne, placed a pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. Secondly, within minutes of this suicide, princess - now Empress- Mercedez Viatrente emerged from her imprisonment. Although only nineteen years of age, Mercedez seized control of the palace guard on her own initiative and ordered the immediate and summary execution of those of her father's cronines who attempted to obstruct her including the Chief of Imperial Intelligence and the Captain General of Capella. The Imperial Marines, loyal to the Emperor or Empress, rather than local authorities, were brought to readiness. On Mercedez command the Marines seized control of critical installations across the Empire and within the Fleet, detaining officers and administrators of questionable loyalty, replacing them with officers she trusted, in many cases the children or grandchildren of families who had served with her great grandmother.

Within twenty four hours of the death of Phillipus, the Fleet was dispersed across the Empire and Empress Mercedez Viatrente was officially installed with the support of the ancient noble families. The fact that such a young woman, especially one who spent the last three years under close arrest was able to move so quickly and establish…..


Annotated Histories of the Later Viatrentes Vol IV - Overview

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Julia nodded and stepped forward enfolding Rene in a hug. Rene returned it awkwardly until she released him and hugged Solae in turn. Damaris repeated her mother's action, gripping so hard that it would have been painful if she were full grown. The upper orders eschewed physical contact on most occasions and despite circumstances the peasants forthright physicality was still a little uncomfortable.

Damaris wiped the tears from her eyes and smile, trying to put on brave face on the departure. It must seem to the girl like something from a holodrama. Being swept out to sea in a great storm, marooned on an island, meeting a beautiful princess from the stars. Rene supposed that when you thought of it in those terms it did sound exciting. Damaris had a child's view of it, she hadn’t been on the starship when it hurtled into the storm, or woken up in a cage stinking of fluorine worried that the person that she loved was in mortal peril. Rene found that he envied her.

The night was still black when Tychon, Solae and Rene set out. The streets weren’t as deserted as might be imagined. The throbbing wings of the jumpers had roused others from their sleep. To the people of San Roayo, the aircraft represented help, the knowledge that they weren't alone on a world which had savaged them. To Rene the knowledge that they weren’t alone was less than comforting. Men from the capital meant men which might be hunting for them, certainly it meant people who would recognise Solae’s hair, and the oddity would be enough to make them stop and look closer.

The warehouse was in darkness when they arrived. Tychon had shut off all the light before they left the previous afternoon, to ensure that there was no reason for any curious passersby to stop in an potentially discover Vitger. This district was almost completely dark, there were few residences and no one to stir by the arrival of the jumpers. Rene thanked the stars for small mercies. They carried small hand torches which illuminated the street with cones of light. Rene’s skin prickled unpleasantly, his instincts told him that they were making targets of themselves, that gunmen need only fire on the points of light, but that was the training talking and it wasn’t a useful response here.

“I’ll get the boat ready,” Tychon offered as they stepped into the office, his feet clinking on the fallen needles that had gone wide in Vitger’s attempt to take them captive. Rene nodded his head, the fisherman was far better qualified for the task, and he had one of his own to perform.

“I’ll speak to Vitger,” Rene declared. Solae looked at him, though he wasn’t exactly sure what the expression on her face meant. They had made the decision to let him live, but they had responsibilities to Damaris and her family too. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but it had to be done.

The door of the shipping container was still locked and bolted. Rene had been afraid that Vitger might have somehow escaped or been rescued even though he knew that was vanishingly unlikely. It swung open easily and the acrid scent flowed out, mixed with the rank stink of human waste. The beam of Rene’s light illuminate Vitger who huddled in the corner to the extend his bonds allowed. The man had soiled himself and tried to shield his face from the sudden, and doubtlessly painful, light. He had soiled himself and he looked half mad with fear. It must have been terrible to wake up in the dark unable to move and with no way of knowing if anyone would ever come back for you. Rene wasn’t a cruel man and he had to remind himself that both Solae and Damaris’ family were depending on him.

Vitger moaned as Rene climbed into the container armed only with a spray can of adhesive removal agent. The merchant shrunk back from him but Rene seized him by the shirt and sprayed his taped mouth with the dispenser. There was an oddly sweet scent as the bonding agent decayed and then Rene ripped the cargo tape from his mouth.

“Please… please don’t kill me,” Vitger blubbered. Rene shoved him back against the container wall, hard enough to smack his head against the insulated plastic.

“Shut up,” he commanded, his voice cold, haughty and commanding. The stink made his stomach churn and bile rose to the back of his throat.

“Look I’ll give you anything… just…” Vitger whined.

“Shut. Up.” Rene repeated and Vitger quailed before him though he couldn’t physically shrink away.

“If you do exactly as we say you will survive,” Rene told him flatly.

“Yes! Any…” Vitger cut off as Rene shoved him hard against the wall again.

“Close your mouth and listen,” Rene growled.

“In a few hours Tychon is going to release you,” Rene told him in a flat matter of fact tone. Vitger sobbed with what might have been relief.

“If you ever tell anyone what happened here, the authorities are going to find somethings in your files that won't go well for you. Maybe they eventually believe you, but not until after the interrogators are done with you,” Rene explained. Imperial interrogation techniques were harsh though they weren’t needlessly cruel. What a rebel duke desperate for answers might do Rene didn’t want to think about.

“You can’t do that! You are just a rebel!” Vitger sputtered desperately. For the first time in the conversation Rene felt his anger rise. Vitger wasn’t an evil man, perhaps not even a disloyal one, he genuinely believed that Rene and Solae were rebels, but he was a worm and Rene felt the injustice of the situation attach to the whimpering merchant like a lamprey.

“Not that it matters,” Rene responded, his voice as chill and clipped as asteroid ice.

“But I am the highest ranking military official on this world. The woman you were fantasizing about is an Imperial Ambassador. As far as you are concerned Vitger, she is the Empress Mercedez Viatrente herself!” Rene snapped his fingers digging into Vitger’s shoulder like pincers.

“And if I were you Vitger, I’d pray for the good health of Tychon and his family, because we will be back here, and if any when we come back, if anything has happened to them, if so much as one hair on anyone of their heads has been harmed, I swear by all the Stars I will find you and you will wish that the Duke’s Interrogators had gotten to you first!”

Rene ripped a strip of tape from his belt and slapped it back over the mans mouth, quieting his sobs. He stood and walked stiffly from the container, dropped from the end, and closed and locked the door. Adrenaline and bile churned in his stomach and he let his head rest against it for a moment. He wasn’t a cruel man, but he needed to be hard, hard enough to protect Solae.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Tracerfire sparkled of the hull of the LAV as Sayeeda dived for cover. As she rolled her helmet visor came alive with carrots that pinpointed the position of hostile muzzle flash. Taya screamed and threw herself to the ground covering her head in panic. That wasn’t a great reaction in a crisis but it wasn’t an uncommon one in ones first exposure to a firefight.

A pair of rockets leaped from concealed positions among the rocks toward the tank. They were too close for the tanks plasma guns to swat, even if they had been set to air defense but a section of the massive vehicles hull exploded outwards in a sleet of steel pellets. The missile defense system essentially detonated one of dozens of integral claymores, which sprayed ball bearings outwards in a cone the computer calculated as an intercept for incoming warheads. One of the missiles exploded in the air and the other one vereed wildly as a section of its steering fin was cut away, mushrooming against the side of the mesa and raining down rocks on the combatants below. A flash of blue bright enough that it would have burned Sayeeda’s eyes slashed across the sky touching one of the APCs and converting it into a fireball of burning metal, fuel and men. A second lance stabbed towards the tank a second later, but the user must have been using a targeting laser because the tanks sand caster fired, spraying a sheet of debris into the air. The lance struck the cloud of gravel and liberated its energy in an explosive cyan fireball that showered the tank with flecks of burning rock but did no real damage.

The ambushers had probably expected the rockets to take out the tank and the second lance had been meant for the other APC but luck had been with Canek. The surviving APC cut its fans and hammered to the dirt like the thirty ton anvil it was. The side panels sprang open and Canek’s mercenaries unassed in record time, opening fire at where they saw, or thought they saw enemies. Sayeeda belatedly realised that the fact they were placing a net of sensors in a particular pattern meant that the enemy was able to predict where they be and lay an ambush. Still an ambush had to work to be effective.

“AID,” she called, queuing the low level artificial intelligence in her helmet.

“Slave vehicle guns to my threat indicator.” The mounted guns on the lvl slewed and began to rip out short two or three round bursts into the mesas, targeting the carroted threats on her visual display. Men tumbled down the slope missing heads or limb from the stabbing plasma discharges. Another LAV exploded in a shower of shrapnel as a rocket arced into its hull, blasting the ammunition and combustibles inside to flaming showers of debris in a fraction of an instant. Bullets wicked the dirt around her lifting puffs of dirt like geysers. Staying next to a vehicle that would draw heavy weapons fire was a bad move and there was no way they could get the LAV back into the air. Even now its hull sparkled with bullet impacts even as the heavy weapons continued to deal automated death. Leaping to her feet she grabbed the cowering Taya and half dragged her the ten meters to where a cluster of boulders provided cover. A ragged man in desert garb rosed from concealment swinging a rifle to bear. Sayeeda cut him down with a three round burst that sent his head and arms flying in separate arc. With a world ending crash the tank fired its main gun. The twenty five centimeter plasma cannon hit the mesa with the force of a thousand freight trains, converting a divot twice the tanks own mass to gaseous rock. If the LAV hadn’t already been grounded the concussion would have flipped the vehicle like a tiddlywink.

Men were screaming and burned as the bullets and plasma bolts howled back and forth. One of Canek’s infantry feel to the ground, his arm shorn away at the shoulder by enemy fire. The plasma lance stabbed again, this time the gunner had taken the targeting laser offline and it carved a glittering scar across the tanks bowslow. All three of the LAVs guns converged on the shooter who had just made himself the biggest threat on the battlefield in the computers silicon brained opinion.

“Neil!” Sayeeda yelled, standing up and riping another burst uphill.

“We have to get some…” the tanks gun crashed again and the concussion dropped her on her ass behind the rocks before cooling drops of magma reigned from the sky.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

The low subsonic thrum woke Rene before dawn. Solae shifted beside him and he tightened his arms around her naked body instinctively. She made a pleased sound and wriggled distractingly against him. Rene felt himself begin to stiffen in spite of the fact he knew he should be focusing on the sound that had woken him. His fingers stroked her hair for a moment longer before he forced himself to sit up. From head to toe his body ached. Just because someone was genetically enhanced didn’t mean they could shrug off the effects of electrical trauma. It didn’t really matter. That which could be ignored was irrelevant. Solae made another sleepy sound, their lovemaking had kept them up later than was probably wise. It had been different, more restrained than usual due to the fact they didn’t want to wake the whole house but passionate and intense nonetheless. He didn’t want to have to face the world right now, he wanted to wake Solae up and remind both of them that no matter what was going on out in the galaxy, they were both here and both still very much alive.

The cheap glass windows were beginning to rattle in their frames. The door swung open and Tychon’s head appeared. In the dim predawn light he looked drawn and skeletal, though Rene knew that was a trick of illumination.

“Jumpers?” Rene asked, pulling the blanket up to cover Solae. Tychon nodded his head obviously not surprised that Rene had already woken to the sound.

“We will be right with you,” he said curtly. Tychon nodded and closed the door. Solae opened her eyes and looked up at him in sleepy interrogation.

“Jumpers coming, probably nothing to worry about,” he explained. Solae sat up fully awake now. Jumpers were a catchall term used for various atmospheric rotary aircraft that were in use throughout the Empire. Each vehicle had a bank of four or more rotors mounted in separate housings that kept them aloft. Jumpers were more maneuverable and far more efficient than pure jet aircraft would have been, and could take of and land vertically to deliver everything from medical supplies to troops.

“Could they be for us?” Solae asked in concern. Rene shook his head.

“There are too many, and if they were coming for us they would have been here quicker, this is probably a survey team or the first stages of a relief effort.”

Judging by the sound the jumpers were coming in from the south east, that meant they wouldn’t overfly the Bonaventure’s hiding place, not that they could spot the ship in the darkness with its systems powered down. Once daylight broke though, an overflight might very well reveal the ships location.

Rene dressed quickly, pulling on a spare set of Tychon’s fishing gear, comprised of a waterproof yet breathable shirt and a pair of heavy duty pants with numerous pockets for equipment. Despite Tychon’s offer of shoes he kept his own boots. They were comfortable and practical as well as being a vestige of his uniform that he was reluctant to give up. It didn’t make any intellectual sense but emotionally he felt like so long as he kept his boots he was in someway honoring the memory of Bowie and the other marines who had died in the Rat Trap.

Solae’s analysis of the Duke’s position made more sense the more Rene thought about it. That was only natural, she was a diplomat trained to think in those terms afterall. It also explained the exorbitant reward being offered for Solae. Tan needed the PEA not just to communicate with his partisans, but to convince other aristocrats that he had a chance, he needed to contact others and encourage them to rise up as well. The Eastern Cross was a wide territory, but history and economics both showed that if the Empress could focus her forces, no one magnate could hope to oppose her. It might take weeks or months for the bureaucracy to dispatch investigators, and for the death of those investigators to be noticed and trigger a military reconnaissance. If Tan didn’t have the PEA system working by then, it was all over bar the firing parties. That should have made Rene feel better, but the Empire Triumphant was an abstract, and the short term danger to the woman he loved was far more important to him.

It also meant that Solae’s entreaties to the other aristocrats in the Cross were more likely to bear fruit. While major families were likely to have either joined or been destroyed, smaller ones would continue to oscillate between the two camps. Tan represented a serious threat and was willing to buy partisans for his cause, but as Solae had said, those that stayed loyal and particularly those who actively opposed the rebels would be rewarded. Tan’s brutal had created a great many open positions afterall. Even knowing Solae was alive might be enough incentive for fence sitters to continue waiting, and of course, more incentive for the Duke to hunt her down and drag her off in chains. Rene’s anger began to kindle at the thought of Solae’s body being part of the reward for her capture. Quietly, he promised himself that if fate ever gave him the chance, he would discuss the matter with Duke Alexis Tan. Discuss very briefly.

Julia Tychon and Damaris were already up and gathered in the kitchen. The girl looked upset that Solae was going to be leaving her large eyes downcast. Julia seemed to be unable to decide between relief and fear whereas Tychon merely looked resolved. Rene wondered if Julia had told her daughter of Solae’s offer. Probably not. He rather doubted any of them realised how serious she was. Solae’s family had suffered greatly in the past weeks and it was both her right and her responsibility to strengthen it. Adoption was a long established legal custom, though it was more usual between noble families, its use on commoners was not unknown. Damaris herself might suffer for being elevated to the nobility without the usual suite of genetic enhancements, but that would be no bar to her advancement in Imperial service. Few people would snub a member of the Falia clan and Damaris’ children would stand as high and proud as any member of that ancient lineage. Solae had mentioned some cousins of hers who converted the title. They were likely to throw a fit as spectacular as it was useless if a fisherman's daughter was inserted into the clan ahead of them.

“It sounds like they are landing at the Harvest Field,” Tychon said as he took a pot of coffee off a chemical heating unit. The Harvest Field was a large airfield on the northern end of San Roayo, the shippers warehouses lined the large open field where the stabilized coral was gathered before being shipped to the capital and the star port.

“Are you sure we don’t need to worry?” he asked nervously. Rene nodded his head.

“I don’t think we should tarry, but if they were looking with us they would have come in as a combat drop. This is probably just relief from the capital, or people surveying for relief anyway.” Rene didn’t mention that it did mean a large influx of people who might recognise Solae for what she was, and an errant noblewoman in a place like this was bound to set of alarm bells.

Damned to the Depths

Calliope shot a final glance at the retreating Vizier. The man had not been best pleased to see Achmed return, but knowing what she knew of the prince she supposed she ought not hold that against him. The Vizier was playing at something, but whatever it was she didn’t have enough information to understand.

“I notice he didn’t commit any of Dalib Sahara’s glorious navy,” she commented. Markus chuckled at the comment. Arad Lind was not renowned for its sea power. The galleys that pirates and powers of the Arads used were ideally suited to the rocky coast and its fickle wind, but they couldn’t mount the kind of heavy guns nor carry the amount of canvas that fleets from Andred and Vrettonia could boast. Timber too was a problem, with few native trees, shipwrights worked on a single piece build rather than laying down frames and strakes. While this was a more efficient use of timber, it limited the total size of any given hull. Finally, Arad society did not lend itself to the kind of technical specialization that the Northern Kingdoms enjoyed. Pirates like the Bloodaxes could be a danger, particularly if they had numbers, surprise and magic on their side, but ship for ship a square rigged northern vessel like the Weather Witch was far superior. Unfortunately, tight seas, like those around their island base, were the perfect place for the galleys strengths to shine.

“It probably is more trouble than it’s worth,” Calliope agreed.

“But we are going to need more than one ship if we are planning to capture the dowry when it sets sail. Pirates and privateers aren’t going to follow you if you don’t have a reputation, and that means that you, we, need to win some victories. Wiping out the Bloodaxes would be a good start.”

Calliope unstoppered a bottle of wine and took a swig from the neck before sitting down beside the Captain.

“They have more ships than us, we need to find a way to neutralize that advantage.” She stared at the map the islands were the real problem, so long as they could use them for cover and concealment, it would be a struggle. If only she could sink the islands into the sea. A sudden thought occured to her and she tapped the largest of the islands, though not the one the base itself was located on, with a fingernail.

“Could we land some men here at night?” she asked. Calliope wasn’t a naval strategist as such, but she was confident that Markus could sharpen the idea.

“If we could lug a gun up onto those heights, we might be able to force them out from between the islands.”

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

The ghoul’s scream choked off into a bloody gurgle as the elven sword sliced halfway through its neck. The creature staggered back to be torn apart by its frenzied companions. Cydric, blood streaming from his wounds hacked like a man reaping corn, severing hands, heads and arms with equal impartiality. Camilla’s sword arm ached and her body trembled near exhaustion, she couldn’t keep this up much longer and their enemies seemed undiminished. Looking around for a means of escape she spotted a stairway that ran up towards the center of the cursed keep.

“Go!” she shouted, pushing Cydric in the direction of the slime slicked stairs. Together they desperately chopped their way through the ghouls. Cydric appeared to be slowing too, though his deadly blade kept any further ghouls from touching them. The scent of his blood drove them into a frenzy and it was all Camilla could do to keep the beasts back. Once they gained the stairs and the higher ground the beasts drew back, hissing and clawing but mostly focusing on devouring their own dead.

“Get up the stairs,” Cydric said through gritted teeth. Camilla looked at him skeptically.

“You are the one all covered in blood, you go first,” Camilla retorted. Cydric grimaced but the set of his jaw told her that he wasn’t willing to budge on the matter. There was no time for argument and Cydric’s heavy blade was probably a more formidable object than hers, she turned and scampered up the stairs without further argument. At the top of the stairs was a long passageway that might once have been used to bring supplies into the keep. A dilapidated cart filled with mouldering straw leaned against one of the stone walls. She rushed over to it and grabbed the handles. The wood cracked and crumbled beneath her hands but she managed to turn the cart towards the stairs. Hastily she drew her pistol laid it on the straw and pulled the trigger. The powder, still soaking from her underwater adventures, failled to ignite, but the flint struck sparks on the steel. It took Camilla two more attempts but she finally managed to blow the sparks into a flame that began to spread over the straw.

“Cydric!” she yelled down the stairwell.

“Run!”

To his credit Cydric didn’t hesitate, he turned and lumbered up the stairs, slower than his usual pace. He was pale from loss of blood but he kept ahead of the ghouls which were scrambling over each other trying to get at the Imperial. By the time Cydric reached the top of the stairs the cart was well and truly ablaze, billowing thick choking smoke as the ancient staw burned. The moment he was clear she shoved the cart into the opening it clattered down the stairs, picking up speed, one of the wheels snapped with a crack and dropped the axle to the stone, shattering the ancient timber. The whole cart overturned spreading flames and burning straw over stairwell. Ghouls shrieked and capered back, even though they probably could have rushed through the flames. Camilla grabbed some fallen timbers and hurled them down onto the cart, adding fuel to the blaze.

“Are you alright?” Camilla demanded leaping to Cydric’s side.

“Its nothing,” he said in what was so clearly a lie that he had the good grace to look embarrassed at saying it.

“Anyway its nothing we can do much about in here,” he added. Camilla gave him a worried look but chose not to argue the point.

“I know how to break the enchantment,” she declared and grabbed Cydric’s blood slicked hand. Together they ran back into the central keep entering the large central hall they had first encountered. The clank of steel on stone announced the approach of more of the undead soldiers but Camilla raced to the throne room. The room was much the same as they had first encountered, save that the shattered staircase and fallen statue disfigured it. The noblewoman on her throne looked up at them.

“Have you seen my husband?” she asked.

“Your husband is dead,” Camilla informed her advancing on the apparition as quickly as she dared.

“They all say that,” the ghost wailed, burying her face in her hands.

“For good this time,” she promised and without warning reached out and grasped the hilt of the sword that transfixed the woman's pregnant belly. The ghosts aspect changed instantly, her beautiful face distorting into a shriek of rage and agony. Boney hands, suddenly quite solid shot down and seized the Tilean’s wrists, sharp fingernails digging into her pale flesh.

“No! You can’t! You can’t free my baby!” the ghost howeled, so loud that the sound itself was physical agony. Camilla gritted her teeth, tightened her grip and yanked as hard as she could. The blade slid free like a knife being drawn from a slab of beef. As the tip slipped free the ghost let out a final dispairing shriek and fell back onto her thrown. Blackness, raw and evil coiled from her stomach like smoke.

“My son!” the ghost wailed but her substance was already beginning to fade like sand being blown before a storms. Camilla dropped the blade in her hand as the iron began to corrode, pitting and wearing away before her eyes before blowing to dust as though it had never been. The darkness poured from the fading ghost, swirling into a shadowed figure that seemed to hover in the air. There was a sudden evil hollow laughter and then, like a sudden thunderclap, it streaked up through the ceiling with a hollow boom that shattered all of the stained glass windows. Thousands of pains of glass rained down to shatter upon the stone floor like hale lashing stone.

There was a shout from the far end of the hall where they had entered but Camilla was already sinking her knees before the throne, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into unconciousness.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Windblown grit drifted across Sayeeda’s helmet. Even at this speed the minute static charge was enough to keep the visor clear. The LAV roared up over the dune, briefly leaping into the air as it crested the rise. Neil poured the power to the fans and set them down on the far side without loss of speed or direction, where a less careful driver might have smashed them into the ground. The LAV roared down the other side of the dune, none the worse for wear. The tank, lacking the power to weight ratio of the light attack vehicle snorted over the rise at an angle before cutting back sharply to traverse the reverse slope.

When Sayeeda had envisaged the ‘poles’ of Hahn, she had imagined it would be cold, but the lack of axial tilt and the intensity of the star the world orbited rendered the place a slightly cooler desert, that was also radioactive. The four Highlanders, if Saxon could be given an honorary place, road in a light attack vehicle. It was a boxy vehicle with four drive fans mounted in attached nacelles. The sides of the vehicle sloped away from the fighting compartment and were made of layered tungsten steel ceramic armor, proof against most small arms and anything but a direct hit by anything short of a tank shell. The vehicle was armed with three quad barreled plasma weapons, two mounted on the wings and one mounted forward. Taya had been give the forward facing weapon while Sayeeda and Saxon had the left and right guns. Taya had been very pleased with the apparently important assignment and Sayeeda hadn’t seen any point in telling her that the forward facing gun was the safest spot for a newbie. One rarely drove directly at a threat if one wanted to survive.

They had been pushing north for the better part of three days, or more accurately, three nights. They operated mostly at night for comfort and because the sophisticated sensors of the vehicles gave them an advantage in fighting in the dark. Canek’s column, two LAVs the tank and a pair of hover apcs were difficult for anyone to miss, they had spotted glimpses of other treasure hunters and the wild natives how lived in the blasted land, but so far they had kept a respectful distance. Not that it would be difficult to sneak up, true to Taya’s words the sensors were nearly useless outside visual range, which was very short in this broken landscape of dunes and rocky outcrops.

The landscape itself had an austere beauty to it. Long dunes of sand rippled across rocky plains that occasionally thrust up mesa like outcrops. Water here was even scarcer than on the rest of Hahn, with few oasis, even those they did see supported only twisted trees, warped by the unhealthy background radiation. What water the nomads used came from springs that bubbled up beneath the limestone mesas where ancient charcoal deposits provided some measure of filtration. Now and again the entrances to such cisterns could be spotted on infrared viewing, dark green swaths radiating a few feet from the mouth of small caverns and cracks in the bases of the rocky mesas. The column had stopped at a number of the larger peaks and bivouacked long enough for Canek’s people to plant sensor units on the high ground in a rough ring around the projected crash site. The sensor units were simple high powered models, designed to cut through the radiation, at least at reasonably short range. Canek calculated that the complete array would be able to sweep the wide area well enough to give them some idea of where the crashed starship might be found.

“Junebug,” Sayeeda’s helmet visor tagged the incoming transmission as gun 1, which was Taya’s station. She didn’t turn her head to look at the girl, but kept her eyes on her sector, empty and barren though it appeared. The comm channel slug was followed by an asterix, indicating it was locked and private.

“Go ahead,” Junebug replied mechanically. The long run had wrung them all out and the dull vibration of the lift fans was enervating even to veterans like Sayeeda Cyckali.

“So what happened with you and Neil back in the city?” Taya asked. Sayeeda only just resisted the urge to snap at the girl for clogging up the commo net with useless trivia but that was an old reflex and no one very pertinent to the present situation.

“I told you, I got jumped by a couple of Canek’s goons,” Sayeeda replied.

“No, I mean before that.”

“Oh…,” she did look now, not towards Taya but down to the back of Neil’s head. It was bobbing up and down as he listened to some music, doubtlessly more of that retro trash of which he was so fond. Taya’s question wasn’t unreasonable, afterall she had seen Junebug and Neil go of to a private room together.

“He told me that he had romantic feelings for me,” she said in a neutral tone. Sayeeda hadn’t had time to process the information. She had a vague notion that Neil was viewing her as some kind of rebound from Woods even though that contradicted what he himself had said.

“And?!” Taya asked, her excitement evident even over the two way link and its accompanying compression.

“Also he thinks Saxon has a thing for me,” Junebug relayed. Since that revelation she had done a little research. The data banks on the Highlander contained little information about Hex’s and their mating habits and what data nets there were in the city had little more than interspeices erotic holos, which while extremely enlightening on the subject of Hexagallion anatomy, were of limited use in determining their courtship rituals.

“What?!” Taya exclaimed so loud that she could be heard even over the roar of the fans. The helmet AI squashed the volume of the words in Sayeeda’s ears which resulted in an odd echo that Sayeeda subconsciously associated with screams of pain.

“You don’t have a thing for Saxon do you?” Taya asked. The map which covered a quarter of Junebugs display in a transperent mask pulsed to draw her attention to it, then zoomed down to a close up of the terrain ahead. The last mesa in their sensor grid loomed before them, glistening in the moonlight.

“Taya,” Junebug replied.

“What?” the girl asked eagerly.

“Watch your sector.”

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

"I'm most optimistic about a woman I know named Eira and a fellow linguist by the name of Kovit."

Eira

A woman, known by Solae

Kovit

A linguist

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Alric Du Quentain

Rene's father. A stern man with previous military service in the cause of the Empress. He was widowed when Rene was young. Currently resides on Capella.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Aquilla and Dunbarton

Entry into the Eastern Cross is only possible (in practical terms) through two Jump Nexi located in the Aquilla and Dunbarton systems. Imperial Doctrine routinely uses choke-points like these to divide space into defensible regions.

The first step in the Duke's Rebellion was to occupy these systems, destroying the Fleet units there, in order to control access to the jump points. Currently the Duke's fleet of auxiliaries is in complete control of these systems and captures any ship which enters from either side, thus preventing word of the Rebellion from spreading.